Aide: Congressman's opponent was paid to drop from race

A former aide to a political challenger of a powerful U.S. representative admitted that she helped funnel the congressman's cash to her former boss in exchange for his withdrawal from a 2012 election, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

There was no answer at the home of Congressman Bob Brady Wednesday and workers in his South Broad Street city congressional office were not certain just where he was or when he'd "reach-out". But tonight his 2012 campaign for Congress has been linked to an illegal payment to get his Democratic opponent for Congress to drop out.

"This office does not comment on on-going investigations. It can neither confirm or deny the existence of an on-going investigation," Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Lappen said.

Details of the case emerged late Tuesday when federal prosecutors announced the guilty plea of 34-year-old Carolyn Cavaness--a pastor at an Ardmore, Pa. church. Cavaness was a campaign aide for Brady's 2012 Democratic challenger-- retired Municipal Court Judge Jimmie Moore.

She admitted she took part in a scheme to move $90,000 dollars from Brady's campaign coffers to Moore to pay off his campaign debts and abandon the race. He did. Cavaness' Ardmore church was locked-up tight Wednesday. Through a friend she declined comment to FOX 29.

A worker in Judge Jimmie Moore's office said she hadn't seen him today. FOX 29 asked the Acting United States Attorney if Cavaness would testify against Brady in a future case.

"Cavaness is someone who plead guilty I will not comment on a further investigation it doesn't matter how many times you ask me," Lappen said.

And there's more. In records filed by the feds. to seal some of the documents in the Cavaness case, the Feds. reveal that Brady later met with a witness in an attempt to "influence" the witness' account of the matter under investigation.